Crisis in Iraq Inspires Spate of Books

By ROGER COHEN

Published: September 7, 1990

After Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the copies of the book that were left in stock sold out in a day. Calls started pouring in from television and newspaper editors seeking interviews with the author, who lives in England. And earlier this week, California Press sold the paperback rights to Pantheon Books, a Random House imprint, for what Fred Jordan, Pantheon's publisher, called ''quite a bit of money.'' 50,000 Copies Pantheon intends to rush out 50,000 copies of the book within three weeks, and said it believes it can sell at least that amount. Rights in Britain were bought by Random Century, which has already published the book.

Meanwhile ''Republic of Fear'' will be reviewed this month in The New York Review of Books and the author is to appear next week on a special ABC program on the Gulf whose anchor is Peter Jennings.

Ms. Withey, who has met Mr. Khalil, said that before publication, she verified his identity through a scholar working in the United States who knows him. She added that she does not know his real name. The writer disguises himself when he appears on television. Meanwhile, another Random House imprint, Times Books, is rushing out a book on the situation in Kuwait and Iraq. It is being written by Judith Miller, the deputy media editor of The New York Times and a former Middle East correspondent for the paper, and Laurie Mylroie, a Harvard professor specializingin Middle Eastern studies. Alberto Vitale, the chief executive of Random House, said he did not know exactly when the book would be published.

He said it would describe ''what's happening right now in Kuwait and Iraq.'' He described ''Republic of Fear'' as more of a literary book.

Some Stand Aside

At Bantam Books, which has perhaps the best reputation for instant books, Stuart Applebaum, a vice-president, said there were no plans for a quick book on the Iraqui situation, although the possibility had been discussed.

''There is no closure to the event yet,'' he said. ''To compete with the daily print and TV media just seemed futile at this stage.''

But he added that the company had decided to step up the marketing of a thriller called ''Warriors'' by Barrett Tillman, which was published earlier this year and is set in the Middle East. A sticker that says ''IT'S WAR IN THE ARABIAN DESERT'' is being applied to all copies of the book, and Mr. Applebaum said there were already signs that sales were picking up.

Richard E. Snyder, the chief executive of Simon & Schuster, scoffed at the notion of an instant book on the Middle East at this stage. ''You can't do an instant book when you don't have a beginning, a middle and an end,'' he said. He added that it was a sign of a good publisher to know ''what is good for television, what is a newspaper story, what is a weekly magazine story, and what can make a book''. ''There's just not enough perspective on this,'' he said. Instant books have enjoyed a considerable vogue since Bantam's success in 1976 with ''90 Minutes at Entebbe,'' a book about the Israeli raid in Uganda. But some publishers have begun to wonder if the genre is saturated, and have stressed the need for such books to add a new dimension to a story the public may be growing weary of.

At Henry Holt, which last year published a history of the Middle East called ''A Peace To End All Peace,'' by David Fromkin, the publisher, Bruno Quinson, said there were no plans, for the moment, to promote the book with advertising. However, he noted that the book was recently nominated for a Los Angeles Times book award.